"I don't wanna talk, about things we've gone throooough, though it's hurting meee, now it's histooory...." I whisper-sang.
I tore my gaze off the screen of my tablet, not bothering to pause the movie I've been watching for the last half an hour at least, as I let my eyes stroll over the clear blue water of the swimming pool rippling in the hot, Greek summer breeze. It belonged to the small, family run hotel in which I was spending my first afternoon on Skopelos Island, Greece. Alone.
Feeling still a little jet-lagged I stretched my white legs on the comfortable sunbed luxuriously, enjoying the peaceful atmosphere of this place. Like the water in the pool, even the wind coming from the nearby sea to caress and tickle my skin seemed to be blue, and fresh, and tempting... whispering about summer adventures... Making me sigh with... sadness, melancholy and longing.
When my eyes found their way back to the small screen propped in my lap, I thought I could as well switch the movie off. I knew it by heart, I saw it 'only' four times over the last two days, feeling as if it was getting better, and better yet, each time I watched it. As if it was... about me. This 'Winner takes it all part' of it at least. About me and Pierce-- yes, the coincidence was not lost on me-- who had left me after a nearly five years long relationship for a woman ten years younger, ten years prettier than myself, a few months ago. I could still feel a little pang in my heart each time I thought of him... her... the two of them together. Even though by now it wasn't about the lost, wasted love anymore, it became all about his unexpected betrayal. I was sure I'd never be able to forget about it, not completely.
"I was in your arms, thinking I belonged theeere, I figured it made sense, building me a fence..." I intoned with the suffering protagonist sotto voce, jumping at hearing a voice speaking to me from behind my sunbed.
"Would you like another one?" A waiter asked as he came closer, filling my field of vision, towering above me while pointing at my empty glass.
"I didn't know there was service by the pool." I said, feeling embarrassed that he had heard my awful singing voice.
"There isn't, normally. It's just my father telling me to look after you." He smiled, perfect white teeth flashing against his olive skin. "He said you have just arrived and might need some information about our hotel and the island."
So that's why he looked slightly too old to be a waiter. He was at least thirty like me, maybe older. The son of the owner of this small hotel which I was sent to inspect by my aunt, the owner of the travel agency where I worked, as a potential place to channel our increasing number of clients eager to spend their holiday on Skopelos, aka the Mamma Mia! Island.
I never quite understood why anyone would want to do that until, persuaded by my aunt, I saw the musical myself. The songs were... so perfectly woven into the plot, or maybe the plot was so flawlessly built around the lyrics written years ago by Abba, and taken, out of all possible places, to a spectacular Greek island. It was one of those rare, nearly perfect movies which made me dream of a different life.
Knowing that my stay here was meant as a punishment for my moping around for months after the breakup with Pierce, I rebelled against the idea initially. But now, sitting by the pool overlooking the sea in the shade of an ancient mushroom pine tree, inhaling the scents I could only imagine and dream about in the city, feeling absolutely free and relaxed after the drink the name of which I could not pronounce offered to me by the old, friendly owner of the hotel when he saw me heading for the pool half an hour ago, I was thrilled to be here, planning my tomorrow's tour around the island. I definitely wanted to see the chapel from the song.
"Ok. The same thing I had before, please." I told the man who smiled before he disappeared into the white stone building.
"But tell me does she kiss, how I used to kiss you..." I muttered, switching the movie off and shoving the tablet into my bag as I saw the man approaching me again after a while, two large, sweating glasses complete with brightly coloured plastic straws and tiny paper umbrellas in his hands. He even managed to get changed, I noticed, there were swim shorts instead of jeans on his tanned legs. It seemed that he decided to keep me company.
Oh well, it could have been worse, I thought, smiling. I observed the muscles ripple under his sun kissed skin, like the water in the pool, as he moved, and the smiling green eyes looking at me from under his thick black fringe. He was really good-looking and that made me feel self-conscious for sitting here, in front of this stranger, only in my bikini. Before he could reach me I quickly slipped my beach dress on.
"Thank you," I said, taking the drink from him and offering him my hand. "I'm Kate."
"Ioannis. Nice to meet you." He said, a tiny accent making his perfect English sound extremely attractive.
I nodded, and bringing the bright blue straw to my lips sipped my drink slowly, waiting for him to start trying to 'sell' me his father's hotel.
So I looked at him surprised when he said, "That's a rather heartbreaking song you were singing, and you looked so... convinced. Was that aimed at anyone specific?"
The smile that followed those words made me blush, so I replied irritably, "All the men of this planet. Or better,
all of those I've ever dated."
That made him laugh. It was such a pleasant, infectious sound that I smiled back at him.
"How many?" He asked, eyes twinkling, as we both took another sip, and I noticed how my glass was nearly empty. I pierced a cube of pineapple lying at the bottom of the still cool glass with the straw and brought it to my mouth as I replied, only half seriously, "Two and a half. The first one doesn't really count, it was over even before it started..."
We spent hours chatting under the pine tree as if we had known each other for years, after that, he only left my side once to get our drinks. When the sun set into the cool sea on the horizon long after all the other tourists vanished from the pool, we walked inside the hotel together. And when he offered to take me out for dinner into a small, local restaurant on the beach, I could not refuse. It simply felt like a perfectly natural continuation of our afternoon.
At the end of our evening, when I walked silently along the surf, enjoying the coolness of the rushing, foaming water submerging my toes and ankles at intervals, one of my hands carrying my sandals, the other wrapped around his arm, I had a feeling that we knew so much about each other as if we had spent our whole lives, and not only one single afternoon together.
I stopped, stunned by that sudden realisation and from the way his eyes bored into mine silently under the moonlight before our lips met, first shyly, tentatively, then, as we let go of our conscious thoughts and inhibitions, with surprise and curiosity, I knew that he felt exactly the same, that something like this has never happened to him either.
I woke up late the following morning, and reached the reception only to find out that the tourist bus I meant to take to see the island was long gone.
Exiting the building, thinking what to do with my day, I winced against the strong Greek sunshine and the recollection of my... new summer experience, my first ever one night stand, not sure how to feel about myself because of it. Sighing, I looked around, hoping to see Ioannis somewhere... and hoping not to at the same time. Just... What would we say to each other today?
And then my eyes landed on him, sitting on a large, shiny, black motorbike at the end of the bright, sandy lane outside the hotel.
"I thought you would oversleep, that bus leaves way too early," he grinned. "Come with me to Mamma Mia! Chapel? We might need to pull each other up that cliff though, there are one hundred and ninety-nine steps and we didn't get much sleep..."
"Yes!" I called, smiling at him widely.
The game is on again, a lover or a friend, a big thing or a small, the winner takes it all, I thought as I reached him.
He cupped my face and I closed my eyes as he kissed me softly before he put a helmet on my head. Then I sat behind him and wrapped my arms tightly around his waist as the motorbike rumbled to life.
"It's some seven kilometres from here, hold tight, don't let go..." he said, and even above the noise of the engine I could hear the smile in his voice.
"You neither," I replied, strengthening my hold around him, annoyed with the helmet for not letting me press my cheek into his back, to listen to his heartbeat through his shirt.
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This story was written for Imagine this... Writing workshop, prompt 8.